7.5 | / 10 |
Users | 5.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
A retiring show song and dancer leaves showbiz to start up a New England country inn with the unique idea of being open only on national holidays. Conflicts arise when his former partner shows up and they fall for the same woman, and sparks fly -as do their feet - in a variety of inventive, holiday themed song-and-dance productions.
Starring: Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Marjorie Reynolds, Virginia Dale, Walter AbelRomance | 100% |
Musical | 97% |
Comedy | 90% |
Holiday | 89% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
English, English SDH, French, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
UV digital copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
It may be an unfair advantage to couch the following trivia question within a review for Holiday Inn, a clue of sorts which will probably instantly provide the answer to anyone who knows a bit about the film, but back in the Dark Ages when I was studying Music Theory in college, we were asked if we knew the only song in American chart history to make it to the Top 10 which started with seven consecutive half steps. The answer, of course, is Irving Berlin's "White Christmas," but only if you skip Berlin's intro and go right to the "I'm dreaming of a White Christmas" part. Those seven half steps had evidently been lingering in Berlin's mind for some time, since Berlin evidently pitched (sorry) the melody to Fred Astaire back when both were churning out material for RKO in the 1930s. Also taking up some cranial space in the Berlin noggin was an idea about a musical based upon an inn which only opened for holidays. Paramount wasn't especially known for its musicals during this period, but they made a virtually risk free decision to sign Berlin to write the score for what would ultimately become known as Holiday Inn. While structurally the film tends to play out as a series of vignettes built around the various holidays depicted, there's a through line of enterprising entrepreneurs trying to make a go of it with a niche hotel, a plot point that would be mined again a bit over a decade later when Berlin, star Bing Crosby and Paramount revisited the basic idea to fashion a new film emblazoned with the title of Holiday Inn's most durable song, White Christmas.
Holiday Inn is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Universal Studios with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.35:1. Universal doesn't seem
to have done any major work on this title, which may lead some who approach catalog titles released by the studio with baited breath. There
is a natural looking grain field in evidence throughout Holiday Inn, though ironically there are a couple of instances that look like
digital sharpening, with slight but noticeable haloing. Overall, though, this is a nicely organic looking presentation, one with good, deep blacks
and nicely modulated gray scale. The encode has no problems resolving busy elements like snowfall or some of the tweedy patterns of the
costumes. Detail, sharpness and clarity are all well above average. The film is rife with optical effects (especially with regard to the calendar
elements that introduce various holidays), and those show more dirt, grain and softness than the transfer as a whole.
Note: Screenshots 21-25 are from the colorized version. This is an effort by Legend Films, which also releases its own colorized Blu-ray
product (March of the Wooden Soldiers).
While this is relatively restrained as far as these things go, the color is not really very convincing, and in fact there are several scenes where it's
not even covering the whole frame (watch carefully in some of the club footage, and you'll see the bottom of the frame, which is where the
audience sits, is still in black and white).
Holiday Inn's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track has weathered the ravages of time surprisingly well, with Berlin's music (and Robert Emmett Dolan's Oscar nominated orchestrations and underscore) sounding nicely full bodied, especially in the midrange. Singing and instrumental elements come through without any distortion, and even hiss is relatively minimal. Dialogue is also presented cleanly and clearly. This obviously doesn't have the flash and vividness of more contemporary soundtracks, but for something from 1942, it's largely problem free.
Holiday Inn features Crosby and Astaire at the top of their respective games, and the Berlin song score is a lot of fun (even his "Abraham" would have been great without the squirm inducing racial element). Breezily directed by Mark Sandrich, the film isn't especially memorable in its putative dramatic elements (which are admittedly pretty slight to begin with), but the musical elements are top notch. Technical merits here are generally very strong, and Holiday Inn comes Recommended.
70th Anniversary
1954
1945
2012-2013
10th Anniversary Edition
2008
1962
2003
Extended Dance Edition
2009
Sing-Along Edition
2018
1951
1982
Rockin' Rydell Edition
1978
Fox Studio Classics
1969
70th Anniversary Edition
1947
2011
Swing Romance
1940
1954
Two-Disc Special Edition
1954
2010
2016
1968